Smokin' Six-Shooter

by B. J Daniels

  Back at her motel, she thought about the farmhouse because it was easier than thinking about the rest of it right now. The house hadn’t been broken into, which meant someone had a key.

  Laura Beaumont had given someone a key to her place? The man she’d fallen in love with, Dulcie thought with a start.

  It made perfect sense if what the writer of the murder story and Midge had told them was true. Laura had fallen in love. She’d broken it off with the other men, which explained that scene in the murder story where one of the men was arguing with Laura in the bathroom. John Atkinson? Ben Carpenter? The rainmaker? Or had there been others that even the storyteller hadn’t known about?

  Excited that she might have stumbled onto something, Dulcie changed her clothes, dressed for a long night of it, and equipped with water, a flashlight and pepper spray, drove toward the farmhouse. Tonight she would find out who Laura had given a key to. Find out who the man was that Laura had fallen in love with.

  Dulcie was putting her money on Ben Carpenter. That was the reason she’d brought the pepper spray. The man scared her.

  On the drive to the farmhouse, she debated calling Russell until it was too late. No cell service.

  She parked up the road and walked, telling herself that all the rattlesnakes had gone back under their rocks for the night. At the house, she found a spot where she could hide to wait and settled in.

  An hour later she was wondering if her theory was as ridiculous as her hiding out here when she heard a sound coming from off in the darkness. The swishing sound became recognizable. Someone was moving through the tall, dry grass toward her.

  Chapter Thirteen

  A black shape emerged from out of the darkness. Dulcie couldn’t see a face, just a large, man-size form as he passed within feet of her. She pressed herself against the wall and didn’t dare breathe until he turned the corner of the house.

  She heard the clomp of his boots on the steps and across the porch, then using his key, the man entered the house.

  Just as she’d thought. He had a key.

  But who had it been? She crept around the corner of the house. He’d left the door wide open. She could hear him climbing the stairs, his footfalls labored.

  She waited until she heard nothing then she edged to the porch steps and glanced inside. Pitch darkness and putrid air filled the house.

  Was she really going inside?

  A light flashed on in the upstairs front bedroom, making her jump. The man was in Laura Beaumont’s bedroom. The faint glow shone through the yellow curtain.

  What was he doing in Laura’s room? Just touching her things, remembering? Or was he searching for something? Evidence that she’d overlooked?

  She debated what to do, knowing what Russell would say about her impetuous behavior. Taking the bull by the horns, so to speak, she crept up onto the porch and entered the house. She didn’t dare use her flashlight. But she checked to make sure it and the pepper spray were still in her vest pockets. They were.

  The blackness inside the house was complete. It made her feel dizzy, screwed up her equilibrium. She closed her eyes, envisioning where everything was as she inched to the bottom of the stairs, her hands out like a sleepwalker.

  She tried not to think about what she would do if she touched flesh and blood. Listening, hearing nothing, she started up the stairs.

  Five steps, stop and listen, another five. At the top, she stumbled and froze, afraid her clumsiness might have been heard.

  A strange sound was coming from the front bedroom. A high keening sound like that of a wounded animal. Her blood turned to ice.

  Was it the man? Who else? No one but he had gone into the house and she didn’t believe in ghosts, did she?

  Dulcie found the wall in the dark and worked her way carefully along it. The keening had changed to something almost more frightening, a horrible choking sound.

  She moved toward the dim light and the sound, determined to get a look at the man and then run like hell.

  As she reached the doorway she saw the man on his knees beside the bed. His flashlight lay on the bed, the shaft of light splashed across the room.

  He was hunched over, holding something in his right hand, his body convulsing with what she realized were sobs.

  The sight gripped her. She watched him, his hands balling into fists, his body quivering, choking out sobs as if bringing them up from some deep, dark well inside him.

  The muscles of his right hand flexed, the fingers opening. In the light from his flashlight lying on the bed, she saw what he held. A gold locket on a chain.

  Her heart stopped. All breath rushed out of her. Time seemed to freeze as her muscles turned to mush.

  The man spun around so fast she didn’t see the blow coming, couldn’t have moved even if she had. His fist caught her on the side of the head, knocking her back into the wall. She smacked her head and felt the light sparkle as she slid down the wall and hit the floor, the lights going out completely.

  RUSSELL JERKED UP OUT of a bad dream, confused for a moment where he was. It took a few seconds to realize what had awakened him. The phone.

  He grabbed it up. “Hello?”

  “It’s Shane. I didn’t want to wake Dad, but I thought you should know. I just arrested Finnegan Amherst.”

  The rainmaker? Russell sat up and tried to clear away the cobwebs of the dream, the remnants of sleep. He’d been dreaming about Dulcie. She’d been in trouble. He shook it off. “Why would you arrest—”

  “I think you might want to come down here. I had the other deputy on duty take Dulcie Hughes to the hospital for—”

  “What?” Russell was on his feet now, fear sending his heart into overdrive.

  “Just for observation. I wanted Doc to look her over to make sure she didn’t have a concussion.”

  “What the hell?” Russell swore as he snapped on a light and looked around for some clothes.

  “She’s all right, okay? She had a run-in with Finnegan Amherst.”

  “I’ll kill that bastard.”

  “Settle down. He’s behind bars and that’s where he’s going to stay. We picked him up as he was leaving town.”

  Leaving town? “That son-of-a-bitch.”

  “I knew you’d want to know about Dulcie. Russell? It looks as if she might have found Laura Beaumont’s killer.”

  “The rainmaker? After I check on Dulcie, I want to see him.”

  “Not happening,” his brother said.

  “Where’s the sheriff? I’ll ask him.”

  “The sheriff’s out of town. But he wouldn’t let you see Finnegan Amherst either.”

  “I’m not going to kill him. I just want to talk to him.”

  “If you’re thinking of beating a confession out of him, forget it. Anyway, he swears he didn’t kill Laura.”

  “He swore he could make it rain, too.”

  DULCIE LOOKED UP TO SEE Russell coming through the door of her hospital room and felt her heart do a little jitterbug. Just the sight of him made her eyes fill with tears. She quickly brushed them away.

  “Are you all right?” He looked both scared and relieved and angry. She didn’t have to guess why.

  “I’m fine. It’s only a slight concussion.” She smiled even though it hurt her jaw to do so.

  Russell swore as he stepped to her, gently turning her head with his fingers to look at the dark bruise that ran from her cheekbone to her chin.

  “It looks worse than it is,” she said and saw him clamp down on his teeth, the muscles in his jaws bunching with fury.

  “How in the hell…” His words ran out.

  “It’s a funny story,” she said, making his eyes narrow. “I couldn’t sleep so I decided to stake out the house. I knew someone was coming in at night and I had this idea that since whoever it was had a key, Laura must have given it to him. Which meant he had to be the man she’d fallen in love with and why she’d broken it off with the others.”

  “Get on to the part that’s funny,” he snapp
ed.

  “The rainmaker was the man. He used his key to get into the house. I followed him upstairs. I found him kneeling beside her bed…” She felt odd telling this part. “He was crying and I saw that he had something clutched in his hand. It was her locket.”

  Russell flinched. “Your mother’s missing locket with the photo inside?”

  “When he realized I was behind him, he spun around and…”

  “He hit you.”

  “I blacked out for a few minutes. When I woke I heard his pickup leaving. I drove down to Arlene Evans and got her to call the sheriff’s office. Then Arlene drove me in to see Shane and he insisted I come over here. End of story.”

  Russell glared down at her. “You went out to that house in the middle of the night, by yourself, looking for a killer.”

  “Actually, I was looking for her lover—not the killer.”

  “How could you do something so rash? So irrational? So damned dangerous and stupid?”

  She bristled. “Reckless yes, dangerous as it turned out, but not irrational or stupid. I took pepper spray and I knew what I was doing.”

  “Did you?” His gaze went to her bruised face and she watched as his expression softened. “Damn it, Dulcie.” He stepped to her and pulled her into his arms.

  She leaned her uninjured cheek against the warm, soft fabric of his shirt and breathed in his scent. She had been rash and reckless and a little crazed. Kind of like her feelings for this man.

  “You’re coming home with me until you have to leave for Chicago,” he said.

  “The killer is behind bars.”

  Russell pulled back to look into her eyes. “Exactly, and I have your undivided attention for a few days before you have to leave, right?”

  She grinned even though it hurt her jaw. “You did promise me a horseback ride and I could use a few days of R & R.” She touched his cheek. “Are you sure about this, Russ?”

  He nodded and leaned down to kiss her softly on her lips. As he drew back, his gaze locked with hers and she realized just how risky this was. For the first time in her life, she felt as if she was in over her head.

  JOLENE HAD AWAKENED late Sunday after a sleepless night. She’d stumbled into the bathroom to shower and stood for a long time studying her face in the mirror.

  She was Angel Beaumont. She’d waited for the name to trigger a memory. Nothing. Just like her visit to the house. And to the jail, after Dulcie’s call.

  She’d looked at the rainmaker, seen nothing but a man who’d aged badly over the past twenty-four years, and felt not even the slightest stirring of recall.

  “Give it time,” Dulcie had said when she and Russell stopped by.

  Word had traveled through the county about the arrest. Jolene had wanted to feel something. Relief. Anger. Anything. But instead, she’d felt only a little sad. With the rainmaker in jail she would never get the end of the story.

  She didn’t mention this to Dulcie, knowing how foolish her sister would find it. Dulcie was convinced Jolene knew the ending, knew it probably better than anyone.

  Deputy Sheriff Shane Corbett had called with the DNA results. Jolene had been expecting the outcome. She and Dulcie were sisters. DNA from the murder scene proved they were the daughters of Laura Beaumont.

  By then, all things that Jolene had known. Still, she’d thought that when she got the DNA results she would feel that bond with Dulcie that sisters were supposed to feel. She’d hoped she would. She hadn’t.

  Maybe it was as simple as the fact that she didn’t want to be Angel, didn’t want to remember those first five years of her life or her mother’s murder or what she must have seen.

  She sighed now, wishing she could quit thinking about it. She’d read most of the cruelly hot afternoon, but even a good book couldn’t distract her from her thoughts.

  Putting down her book, she walked to the window, surprised it was getting dark. She felt restless, thought about going into town, but didn’t have the energy or any reason. It was still unbearably hot, but now the breeze coming in the open window felt muggy.

  She dreaded tomorrow. There would be no ending to the murder story. She would grade her students’ assignments, then hand them all back, keeping copies for the promised anthology. School would let out early for the year. It would be over.

  And yet it wouldn’t be over for her until she remembered.

  She couldn’t bear to think about spending a long, hot summer here now. But where would she go? Dulcie had talked about her coming back to Chicago with her. Jolene wasn’t ready for that.

  She turned away from the window. The house felt unbearably hot. Maybe she’d take a cool shower. She wandered into the bathroom and stripped down. As she stepped under the icy spray, she thought of Tinker and felt her stomach turn. He’d been the boy she’d played with at the creek, the friend who, according to the author of the murder story, tried to save her the night her mother was murdered.

  As she shampooed her hair, she wondered if Tinker knew who she was, had known since the first time he’d asked her out at a Whitehorse Community Center dance.

  The thought sent a chill through her. She turned up the hot water and stood under it for a few seconds.

  Had Tinker known his father sneaked over to see Laura? He was nine, plenty old enough to know what was going on. Or had Ronda been telling the truth and Ben had never been Laura’s lover?

  Turning off the shower, Jolene rubbed her temples, feeling a headache coming on, if she kept this up. But she had to know who’d been writing the murder story.

  As she pulled on a tank top, shorts and sandals, she padded back into her living room and glanced at the computer sitting on the desk in the corner.

  She hadn’t even turned it on since the one at the school was newer and had Internet service. But hadn’t Titus Cavanaugh mentioned that the two computers were networked together?

  Moving to the desk, she stood for a moment, staring down at it, thinking of the murder story and what had bothered her about it. Let me be wrong. Slowly, she touched the on button. It took a moment for the computer to boot up.

  Jolene jerked back as the murder story came up on the screen.

  DO YOU REMEMBER YET?

  Remember the crushing heat that night, wading in the warm creek water, the feel of the grass on your bare feet? Remember sitting on the bank whispering a secret in the dark?

  You have a secret, don’t you? That’s why you don’t want to remember that night and the sound of the weather vane groaning in the wind.

  You know who killed your mother. You’ve always known. But you don’t want to remember the blade of the knife, dripping bright red with your mother’s blood, or the hand holding it.

  JOLENE COVERED HER MOUTH as tears flooded her eyes. She shot out of the computer chair, stumbling back, almost falling. As if she could run away from the words on the screen.

  Through the open window, she could smell rain in the air and feel the cool blowing in. She snatched up the phone and dialed Dulcie’s number. There’d been enough secrets. Enough lies. She could no longer live with hers.

  The call went straight to voice mail. The trees just outside the window whipped back in the wind, the branches scraping the side of the house like fingers across a blackboard. Dark shadows flickering shapelessly against the coming night.

  “If you would like to leave a message…”

  “Dulcie, I know. I know what happened that night. I—” The words caught in her throat as she saw something through the thrashing branches.

  There was a light on in the schoolhouse.

  AFTER THEIR HORSEBACK RIDE, Dulcie soaked in the hot tub, hoping to relieve some of her aches and pains and then showered. “Riding a horse isn’t as romantic as it looks,” she called from the bathroom. “Thank you for taking me, though. I loved seeing the country. It is so beautiful down in the Missouri Breaks. I see why you love it here.”

  When she didn’t get an answer, she pulled on her clothes and, finding the bedroom empty, discovered Russe
ll sitting in the living area reading something.

  As she moved closer she was startled to see that he was reading the copy of the murder story that Jolene had given her.

  The worry in his gaze as he looked up at her scared her.

  “Why are you reading that?”

  He set the copies aside and sighed. “What if Jolene receives the ending tomorrow at school?”

  “That’s not possible. The rainmaker is in jail.”

  “What if he isn’t the one writing it?”

  Hadn’t she thought there might be someone else, an accomplice to the murderer who had helped him or her stay free the past twenty-four years?

  But she’d discarded the theory when Finnegan Amherst had been arrested for the murder. The rainmaker was a loner, an outsider. No one in this town would have helped him.

  “You’re scaring me.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s just that after reading this again…” He met her gaze. “The writer is too intimate with what happened.”

  “Of course he is. The killer’s the only one who knows the whole story.”

  “Except for Angel.”

  Dulcie felt her breath rush from her lungs. “You think she’s writing it. That’s she’s always been the author.”

  “I think it’s possible. Maybe more than possible. She repressed the past and yet she took this teaching job. What if her writing the murder story is Angel’s way of dealing with her past?”

  She bit her lip to hold back the tears. “What happens if she writes an ending to the murder story and it’s on that empty desk in the morning where she found the others?”

  “She’ll know the truth,” he said flatly.

  Dulcie felt ice slide up her spine. “Russ, no. You can’t think…She was only five. She couldn’t—”

  “I don’t want to believe it either, Dulcie. But—”

  “No. It was the rainmaker. He had the locket—” She felt the tears on her cheeks. Not her sister.

  Her fury at her grandparents gripped her heart like a fist. How could they have left Angel behind, left her in such an awful situation? It didn’t matter if Laura refused to give up Angel. They should have taken her anyway. They should never have separated her from her older sister.